The Johnstown Tomahawks returned the favor.

After the Maine Nordiques scored six unanswered goals Friday night to come back and defeat the Tomahawks, Johnstown had a comeback of its own Saturday night.

Johnstown scored three unanswered goals in the third period and Stephen Kyrkostas’ goal in the shootout gave the Tomahawks a 5-4 victory at the 1st Summit Arena at Cambria County War Memorial in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

“We started to play the either/or game,” Maine Nordiques coach Pinchevsky said. “Either we win the race (to the puck), or we don’t. We either eliminate a stick, or we don’t. We either make a save, or we don’t. We either win the draw, or we don’t. We either hit our details, or we don’t. We found out when we don’t.”

Defenseman Evan Orloff started the Nordiques’ (12-21-5, 29 points) strong start with three minutes remaining in the first period, beating Tomahawks (23-13-5, 51 points) goalie Dominik Wasik (25 saves) for a 1-0 lead.

Sacred Heart recruit Aidan Connolly scored his 12th goal nearly four minutes into the second period to put Maine up 2-0, with Nicholas Bernardo and Zion Green picking up the assists.

“I thought our forechecking and our net-front presence were good; that’s what produced our first two goals,” Pinchevsky said. “The other two (goals) were opportunistic. When you score four goals, that’s good enough to win.”

Brendan Gibbons stretched the Nordiques lead to 3-0 early in the third period. Connolly and Matthew Connor had the assists.

Johnstown finally started to chip away at the deficit when Egan Schmitt scored his 11th goal of the season 6:40 into the third period.

Maine forward Filip Wiberg scored his fourth goal of the season to stretch the Nordiques lead to 4-1 shortly after Schmitt’s goal.

In the final ten minutes, the Tomahawks scored three in a row to force overtime. Holt Oliphant beat Nordiques goalie Gus Holt (32 saves) to cut Maine’s lead to 4-2. Jake Black then put Johnstown within a goal on the power play.

Jacob Badal scored with 88 seconds remaining in the third period to tie the game 4-4, which forced overtime.

After a scoreless overtime session, Kyrkostas scored for Johnstown in the second round of the shootout. It was the lone goal in the shootout.

“We grew this weekend like we did (two weekends ago),” Pinchevsky said. “Three out of four (points) with 10-12 hour road trips is something to be viewed as progress. That’s what we always say in our locker room: It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to be progress. We grew as a group. We grew through success last night and tonight we grew from failure. We are just focused on Danbury now.”

The Nordiques next travel to Danbury, Connecticut to take on the Jr. Hat Tricks on Thursday (7:45 p.m.) and Friday (3:30 p.m.).

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